“The idea was to do a great big, epic story that represented the Avengers at their best, doing what they do best, taking on planet-threatening monstrosities,” Abnett tells Marvel.com about the project. “I gave them an Earth-shaking, staggering threat, which I hope won’t be too much for them to deal with. It’s got to be big. Without the artwork of comics to give you the fun and games, you need the fun and games to be present there in the prose for it to be big and expansive. It needed to be ambitious.”

The line-up of the team in the novel mirrors the movie incarnation, which Abnett said was a Marvel request, although it apparently features the comic book version of the characters in an as-yet-undisclosed point in their history. The book follows up on the writer’s recent Guardians of the Galaxy novel released to tie in with that movie. That novel, he says, “was one of the most fun jobs I can remember in a long time, with that combination of action and humor and Marvel lore—referencing continuity and Easter-egging. So, I really enjoyed it and it seems to have gone down really well. Marvel was so pleased they’ve come back to me for more.”